Nothing's For Free film review
New World Disorder super fan Gerard Lagana put some popcorn on and checked out Nothing's For Free. Here's his take.
Words: Gerard Lagana
Mountain bike movies have always had a special place in my heart, so I was very curious to see what Nothing's For Free had to offer when I heard it was released. This is a documentary movie about the pioneers of freeride mountain biking but also the story tellers, the film makers who both focussed on and drove the progression of the sport. They really helped dictate the direction of freeride as we know it today, and this is their story.
The first mountain bike movie I watched was New World Disorder 3. I remember my family friends who introduced me to mountain bikes putting on the DVD one day and we were mesmerised by what we were watching. I had no idea that at that point, my life was about to take a path that I’m still on today 20 years later! From then on I remember waiting for the new movie to come out every year which did so for another 7 years bringing the NWD series a total of 10 movies over 10 years. The impact of these movies was huge for me personally and I know for a lot of other people also. Not so much what type of rider I became but the lifestyle of wanting to ride everyday and be amongst some of the best trails and scene in the world.
I found my self living in Whistler on and off over 9 years pretty much all because of watching so much epic footage from these movies growing up. Some people have never left and have made a life still living in the Sea To Sky corridor that is from Vancouver to Squamish to Whistler to Pemberton. It's the mountain bike Mecca! It wasn’t until years later that I started to appreciate the production of extreme sports movies specifically for mountain bike and ski movies. I was in the thick of the sport but also trying to wrap my head around every shot, timelapse and segment. I started to grow a whole new level of appreciation and love for these movies years later. Not to mention the riders that were creating the future as we know right on our screens.
Nothing's For Free documents the birth of freeride in the world but mainly out of British Columbia, Canada. Derek Westerlund is the main man behind the production of Freeride Entertainment had a goal to make the most hammer freeride mountain bike movie every year with the most bad ass riders at the time. Riders would work all year to create jump lines, scope filming spots for when the film crew came to town to film their segment.
Nothing's For Free screenings in Australia
Pushing to the absolute limit and possibilities of the sport, risking life and death comes at a cost. This movie looks at the riders who pushed the sport to where it is today and how the industry was evolving year-by-year with the impacts of freeride. Freeride helped mountain biking break out of a race-specific focus of cross-country, downhill and trials. It was about riding in the mountains, riding big lines, riding everything and just ripping. And eventually, it was also about competitions and condensing the skill set of freeriders for a live audience.
Nothing's For Free also looks at the risks and some of the riders personal lives outside of the mountain bike scene. This is where I was not expecting the narrative of the movie to go down. There are some interviews with riders looking back on what they have suffered on the injury side physically and mentally which definitely made me look at all those video segments that I envied for years in a very different light. It was crazy back then and it is still crazy now how big some of those riders sent it for the camera or competition and sadly there are a few rides suffering the consequences.
Nothing's For Free isn’t quite the banger movie release like the latest New World Disorder or Kranked films were. Being so attached to the New World Disorder series and the riders it created for the sport I sort of anticipated a similar release. And while we do see the iconic Jah Drop hit again, Nothing's For Free truly is a great documentary of the legends in front and behind the camera who helped shape the history and future of our young sport – including the impacts of that on their lives and bodies.
If you were obsessed with the New World Disorder series or in touch with the modern day freeride scene, Nothing's For Free definitely should be put on the watch list to appreciate and maybe educate where this amazing sophisticated scene has come from and where it will lead riders in to the next generation of Freeride.
